QUANTICO, Va. -- Sept. 30, 2022, marks a significant milestone in podcasting history.
On Sept. 30, 2014, podcasters from around the country gathered via live streaming, call-ins, question and answer sessions, and roundtable discussions to observe National Podcast Day.
In 2015, the observance was re-branded International Podcast Day, and for good reason. Between 2015 and 2019, podcasters from nearly 70 countries successfully live-streamed hundreds of hours to mark the occasion. Special social events, festivals and meet-ups were organized around the world on or around Sept. 30 just to celebrate the power of podcasts.
That said, I couldn’t think of a more fitting time to publish this update on the current state of OSI Today, the podcast featuring News and Views from around the Office of Special Investigations.
For those unfamiliar with the podcast, it, along with other social media platforms and initiatives, is designed to augment the OSI Commander’s 2020 Strategic Communications Plan.
The plan has five goals: Communicate “The OSI We Need,” Tell the OSI Story, Recognize Our People, Drive Conversations – Internal and External, and Reinforce our Strategic Engagements.
OSI Today started focusing on those goals with its first episode July 13, 2020, about “How good OSI units become GREAT.”
To date, 42 episodes have been published. That includes 23 My OSI Journey episodes furthering the Commander’s strategic intent to showcase OSI’s Diversity and Inclusion efforts via a special series under the OSI Today podcast umbrella, featuring the OSI career stories of various command-wide members.
As the producer and host of OSI Today, it’s my dual-hatted responsibility to ensure the podcast attains those goals. My job has been made especially gratifying thanks to the enthusiastic support of OSI leadership plus the rank and file throughout the command to launch and sustain this platform with viable content.
Also gratifying is the increasingly loyal following from our listeners, both internally and externally, made possible in large part, by our OSI Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube social media platforms, plus our more established public website and Early Bird emails. These marketing tools hone-in on when and where you can find our podcast posts, so you can plan your listening accordingly.
OSI Today connects with audiences near and far, to include: the Air Force; Space Force; current and former OSI members; recruits; local, national and international partners; the Intelligence Community and, of course, the general public.
With that kind of outreach, it’s no surprise OSI is all in when it comes to leveraging one of the most popular social venues to get its word out. How popular?
Following the launch of OSI Today, research statistics published in October 2020 from The Infinite Dial, (the longest running survey of digital media consumer behavior in America), showed there were more than 1.5 million podcasts with more than 34 million episodes. And, the numbers were climbing daily.
Fast forward to present day. Infinite Dial reports that from a listener standpoint, an estimated 109 million people (of the total U.S. population ages 12+) or 38 percent, listened to a podcast last month.
Numbers aside, when I arrived for duty at OSI headquarters in July 2015, as a novice magazine editor and website content manager, I first had to learn what the command and its folks were all about. It was a gradual learning curve.
That education was significantly accelerated thanks to OSI Today. Not only did it resurrect my skills as a former Air Force broadcaster in a previously unfamiliar medium, but it helped me gain an up-close appreciation for what the OSI mission entails, and respect for the special agents and professional staffers who perform it.
I thank everyone who has contributed to OSI Today’s on-air success, and I’m looking forward to expanding our guest list, content, and listener reach.
All OSI Today podcasts are heard on the OSI public website: www.osi.af.mil . Click the two parallel lines in the upper left-hand corner of the home page and then click OSI Podcast.
They’re also all accessible via the Air Force Connect App. Click Favorites, click Office of Special Investigations, click the Podcast microphone icon.
Several more OSI Today podcasts are in the works, so as they say in broadcasting circles…Stay Tuned!